A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
If I’ve reached for your lines (I have)
like letters from the dead that stir the nerves
dowsed you for a springhead
to water my thirst
dug into my compost skeletons and petals
you surely meant to catch the light:
-at work in my wormeaten wormwood-raftered
stateless underground
have I a plea?
If I’ve touched your finger
with a ravenous tongue
licked from your palm a rift of salt
if I’ve dreamt or thought you
a pack of blood fresh-drawn
hanging darkred from a hook
higher than my heart
(you who understand transfusion)
where else should I appeal?
A pilot light lies low
while the gas jets sleep
(a cat getting toed from stove
into nocturnal ice)
language uncommon and agile as truth
melts down the most intractable silence
A lighthouse keeper’s ethics:
you tend for all or none
for this you might set your furniture on fire
A this we have blundered over
as if the lamp could be shut off at will
rescue denied for some
and still a lighthouse be
A few random poems:
- Robert Burns: The Slave’s Lament:
- Psalm 9 by Mahmoud Darwish
- Владимир Высоцкий – Заживайте, раны мои
- The Two Terrors poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Poetry Reading At West Point by William Matthews
- Friday’s Child by W H Auden
- Sonnet 12: When I do count the clock that tells the time by William Shakespeare
- Юнна Мориц – Трудно светиться и петь не легко
- Низами Гянджеви – Искендер-наме – Страница 7 из 15
- O Tan-faced Prairie Boy. by Walt Whitman
- Tears, Idle Tears poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Point Shirley by Sylvia Plath
- The Home by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Stage Coach by William Barnes
- A Tribute to Mr J. Graham Henderson, The World’s Fair Judge by William Topaz McGonagall
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Robert Burns: Verses To Collector Mitchell :
- Robert Burns: Jockey’s Taen The Parting Kiss:
- Robert Burns: Mally’s Meek, Mally’s Sweet:
- Robert Burns: Crowdie Ever Mair:
- Robert Burns: News, Lassies, News:
- Robert Burns: The Wren’s Nest: Fragment
- Robert Burns: Leezie Lindsay: Fragment
- Robert Burns: Inscription: Written on the blank leaf of a copy of the last edition of my poems, presented to the Lady whom, in so many fictitious reveries of passion, but with the most ardent sentiments of real friendship, I have so often sung under the name of-“Chloris.”
- Robert Burns: O That’s The Lassie O’ My Heart :
- Robert Burns: Song Inscribed To Alexander Cunningham:
- Robert Burns: O Bonie Was Yon Rosy Brier:
- Robert Burns: This Is No My Ain Lassie:
- Robert Burns: The Braw Wooer:
- Robert Burns: Why, Why Tell The Lover: Fragment,
- Robert Burns: Forlorn, My Love, No Comfort Near:
- Robert Burns: Their Groves O’Sweet Myrtle :
- Robert Burns: Twas Na Her Bonie Blue E’e:
- Robert Burns: Mark Yonder Pomp Of Costly Fashion:
- Robert Burns: How Cruel Are The Parents: Altered from an old English song. tune-“John Anderson, my jo.”
- Robert Burns: On Chloris Being Ill:
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012) was an American poet, essayist, and feminist.